Race 3. Saint gilles Croix de vie. Sunday 10th may 2009

After copping a battering on Saturday in Saint cyr, then hitting the Poitiers

discothèque with Charlotte and her team till 5 in the morning, I was starting to question the intelligence of my decision to race the Sunday in Sanit Gilles croix de vie. It had been my suggestion to Laurent Suppi that persuaded him to race there also and when Charlotte woke us up in her caravan on the Sunday morning, we looked more like senile sloths with chronic fatigue, than guys that needed to race in a few hours. It was doing a warm-up ride with Laurent, that I remembered vowing last year, I would not race this race again. With a bike course that better resembles a star pattern on a patchwork of gravel and bitumen surfaces, as black rain clouds consumed the sky, my eagerness to hit the course flat out was lacking at best.

I was unable to do a swim warm-up. Not for the usual reasons of it being un allowed or missing the time, but because the water was so dam cold and, still being haunted from the events 24 hours before, I exited the water just prior to groin depth, and commenced a rigorous star jump and burpie routine on the sand. With everyone at the ready, the gun was fired and a few hundred Frenchies and me sprinted down the beach to get into the 14 degree water. It was after my initial duck dive and further flailing dolphining attempts, that I became acutely aware of the cold water. How could I not? It felt like I had left my head in the car door with nana continuously trying to close it as she crackles “in my day car doors always closed, they don’t make them like they use to”. I think for certain it was the first time I thought my eyeballs would fall out (except for a race I did once in Les Sables where there were a lot of topless girls on the beach…but lets just keep on track). I never felt very great on the swim and had the sensation my pace was slowly deteriorating, but I was able to get a little wave to shore and ran into transition in 4th. A group of 4 was able to form consisting of Benoit Buchard (Les Sables), Nicolas Alloit (Saint jean de monts), Pierre Le Corre (Les Sables), and me (Cesson, fluro Cesson). Beniot and I pushed the pace and with each lap were told the gap to the chase bunch of ten or so guys was getting bigger. With one lap to go our lead was 50 seconds and I was happy enough to stop taking risks to gain anymore time, but not Benoit. If the corners were not dangerous enough, the constant stream of lapped riders certainly were. We were presented many times by scatterings of riders taking up all the road and not even the presence of he lead motorbike, whistles, or me yelling “putain, rester a gauche” (you will have to look that one up!) was going to distract them from their 30km/hr joyrides. We lost Benoit at one point as he shot through the middle of a disorganized looking pack, in the middle of a traffic island, while we hit the skids behind, and it was left to me to get him back. Somehow we all came into transition together. Nicholas was the first to drop, which was of no surprise, as he has been injured and unable to run for a while. Benoit set the tempo and I went along for the ride, unaware Pierre was doing the same, some 5 meters back. I passed Benoit in the last half of the last lap and knowing I was not in great shape made my move for the win with a little more that a km to go. Dam, he lifted and went with me!! So now we were running hard and closing in on a sprint finish, just the two of us, or so I thought. We rounded the final right hand corner and lined up the finishline. Between us was around 300m of the most slippery tiles in France, or possibly the world. I had watched people in the earlier race slipping over on them and now here I was trying to sprint on them. I ran hard, Beniot ran harder, I tried a new technique that gained me nothing in speed but gave me the appearance of an epileptic baboon, in desperate need to go to the toilet. Benoit drew level with me, and then I heard it. Someone in the crowd yelled “aller Pierre” Oh god, he was right there!! Beniot took off like he had stolen something and Pierre passed me like he was chasing someone that had stolen something. I succumb to the pain in my legs and checked over my shoulder for anymore unpleasant surprises. I crossed the line at a walk, 4 seconds behind the two team mates that had gone one/two in a glorious sporting moment, and sat down on the seawall, to think over how I had gone from first to third in 50 meters